Synopsis: I went 4 - 0, maxed out sportsmanship, and didn't win.
No kidding, you can't make stuff like this up. :) Oddly enough for a four game event, the two guys going into the fourth round with 3 - 0 records didn't play each other. So, you end up with two guys at the end who were 4 - 0, and no mechanism for a tie breaker. The winner was a local kid (Space Wolves), who coincidentally tried to give me the prize at the end of the night. It was a terrain kit that I didn't particularly care for, and it wasn't his fault that he was put in that situation. The event organizer got the job on short notice & I'm just not that sort of guy.
Armies Present:
Space Wolves x3 (all local folks)
Daemon Hunters (local guy)
Blood Angels (SE Missouri player)
Black Templars (Aerion)
Eldar (Ol'Seth)
Chaos Marines x2 (Marvin the Despoiler & Genoside)
Tau (Warlock)
Space Marines (My Salamanders)
Game 1 (Salamanders vs. Space Wolves) - This game lasted 2.5 turns. I know very little about the new Space Wolf codex, but this guy (who was a fantastic guy btw) didn't have a whole lot on the board. Grey Hunters in Land Raider, squad of Wolf Riders, Grey Hunters on foot, crap-ton of named characters...I went first and shot him off the board. It was just one of those games. Everything I tried worked, and he couldn't roll a save to...well, save his life.
Game 2 (Salamanders vs. Chaos Marines) - I played Marvin during one of my Adepticon warm up sessions. It did not go well for him then. I gave him some suggestions, and the dirty bum actually listened to me. This game went down to the last turn and I was able to shoot his Plague Marine squad off of the objective so that I could fully claim it. All of the things that went right for me in game one died by turn 2. I had to fight to get back on track and that's what made this a spectacular game. Marvin is getting good quick, and playing him will make me better in turn. As an aside, all of us in Team Snake Eyes have Internet "handles" to keep our legions of groupies and stalkers at arms length. Your humble correspondent takes his, not from an overlarge sense of worth, but from those cool three-eyed aliens from Toy Story who cried "I am the Chosen One!" as they were pulled up by The Claw. Marvin takes his name from one of his aspiring champion conversions:
Game 3 (Salamanders vs. Tau) - One of my most memorable games at Adepticon was my last. A Tau/Space Marines combo shot me off the table...in a bad way. I vowed that, regardless of common sense or tactics, I was going to charge those blue skinned Xenos with everything I had. Worked out pretty well for me. Warlock needs to learn to use his Kroot a bit better methinks, but he's getting better. This was a classic case of my entire army hitting a portion of his. The overwhelming force was hard to react to. The old Chaos player in me just thinks Warlock's head isn't in the Xenos frame of mind because he's getting into the moment for Adepticon 2011 where he'll likely be playing the Tzeentch "flavor" in a 4 powers themed chaos marine army.
EDIT: Turns out Mr. & Mrs. Warlock along with Ol'Seth will be making an Iron Hands team for Adepticon. I can only hope his defeat at the hands of the Salamanders imparted some sympathetic "drop site massacre" influence on him. We were there man...we were there. :)
Game 4 (Salamanders vs. Space Wolves) - Seriously? What's up with all these dang wolves? Same result as the last game against them. Too many toys, not enough boys. I swear, this kid must have had 4 named characters in his army at 1500 points. It was a capture the flag mission where I had to move the flag back into my table quarter. I owned the flag by turn two, and never looked back. This game was against a new player, and he was still feeling out both his army and the game itself. Even as a "mediocre" player, I enjoy helping the newer guys out, and this kid was no exception. He had trouble keeping his focus, but he was a true Space Wolf. Even as I killed his models, he only removed them from the board after cursing the questionable heritage of my Salamanders, and the lack of beer at the battle. He was so into the game that it made my experience that much better.
Paint Competition went well for Aerion. He won a Blue Ribbon for my terminator squad and a white ribbon for my Land Raider (as well as other entries, he's kind of a local hero...to me anyway). He refused to take the ribbons muttering something about unfinished models. He painted the bloody things, I just paid for them. I've got some modest friends. Don't get me started on that though, the guy who painted these Eldar (Ol'Seth) refuses to even acknowledge that his models are even "okay". Goofball.
All in all, Team Snake Eyes had a mixed day. I went 4 - 0. Aerion & Ol'Seth went 3 - 1, Marvin went 2 - 2, Genoside went 0 - 3 with a bye, and Warlock went 0 - 4. A local kid won the show, and another local won Best Sportsman. All of my units performed admirably, with the Dreadnoughts, Speeders, Assault Terminators, & Vindicator all coming through for me in big ways at various points. My tactical squads, however, felt awkward. Sort of like Ricky Bobby's hands during his first television interview: "what...am I supposed to do with these?" The missions were weird (home grown stuff), the room was hot, the prize support was so-so, and the original organiser couldn't make it due to injury. Sort of surreal, but all TSE members enjoyed the day and vowed to keep up the play. I don't call this redemption, but it was good to put into practice all of the things I should have done with my earlier games. I didn't change my list, only the way I used it, and got vastly different results. I understand there's a bit of a disparity between my opponent's skill at this RTT and what I faced at Adepticon. I also understand that Adepticon is not the end all be all of this hobby, I'm just using it as a generic metric because there were some fantastic players there who have forgotten more about 40k than I may ever know. The quest continues.
Posts
